Chiyangwa threatens to sue Coltart…. calls him “political vendor in distress”

Former Education Minister in the coalition government David Coltart accused flamboyant businessman Philip Chiyangwa of enriching himself at the expense of Zimbabwe’s working class. Speaking to The Zimbabwean newspaper, Coltart said Chiyangwa was behind the closure of most Bulawayo companies that he had taken over.

Below is the full response by Chiyangwa

By Dr Philip Chiyangwa

First and foremost I have never bought a single operating company in Bulawayo in the sense of a going concern. What I simply participated in was public auctions of the disposal of assets of dead companies through the Master of the High Court, through the active direction of liquidators.

What David Coltart is selectively failing to inform the public is that these companies had been severely stripped and run-down by their former owners (mostly the Jewish friends of Coltart who controlled the industry in Bulawayo). Batai imbwa yemurungu asangohukura posepose!!

For the record I simply picked up assets way after some core and critical pieces had been cherry picked and sold away. Ndakatengeserwa zvasara…marata nezvinhu zvisingashande. Coltart does not want the world to know of his role in getting without going to tender a contract with National Railway of Zimbabwe (NRZ) which was for 80 years and they’re still getting payments.

His role in destroying NRZ needs to be publicly interrogated. Manyepo Chikwambo chevapindirwa nenzara mumba. Murungu uyu ajaira kunyepa mhani. Takatengeserwa rezvima kambani zvanga zvapwanyiwa nevanhu ava. I was just one of the participants in a public fire-sale-hapana airambidzwa kutengawo mamvemve anga asara.

I take great exception to the wanton abuse of my name-brand as an object and subject of mindless mass-circulation driven titillation as in the widely circulating tabloid interview article “Coltart Blames Chiyangwa for Demise of Bulawayo Industries”- The Zimbabwean of 15 June, 2015.

I will not stay silent while my reputation is sallied and impugned to crank up the flagging fortunes of yester-years political figures as they seek to enliven their deferred dreams of social acceptance.The spurious allegations of Mr. David Coltart cannot pass the test of facts below outlined for the public record and for avoidance of any doubt.

David Coltart, Barbra Lunga and Robert Michael McIndoe represented Tirzah Group of Companies (Tirzah Investments Pty Limited) in their capacity as provisional liquidators and Native Investment Africa represented by Dr. Philip Chiyangwa as purchaser on the 5th of May, 1998. The Tirzah Group of Companies as Seller sold movable and immovable properties as stated below:

IMMOVABLE PROPERTIES

1)       Stand 13570, Bulawayo (known as 3 Empress Street, Bulawayo)

2)      Stand 12265A, Bulawayo (known as 8 Empress Street, Bulawayo)

3)      Stand 13631, Bulawayo (known as 5 Empress Street, Bulawayo)

4)      Stand 6371, Bulawayo (known as 5 Halifax Road, Donnington)

INDUSTRIAL PROPERTIES

1. Share 2 of Stand 696 Bulawayo Township, (known as Flat 2, Norvic Court, Bulawayo)
2. Share 1 and 3 of Stand 1226 Bulawayo Township (known as 1 & 3 Sloane Square, Bulawayo)
3. Share # 203 of Stand 697, Bulawayo Township (known as 203 Sunningdale, Bulawayo)
4. Stand 1803, Bulawayo of Stand 1823 (known as 43 Coghlan Avenue, Bulawayo)
5. Stand 12017 Salisbury (known as 13 Helsdon Avenue, Harare)
6. Eagle Estate, Marondera

MOVABLE PROPERTIES

Meaning the remaining movable assets of:

1)       G&D Shoes, Private Limited (G&D) in Belmont, Bulawayo

2)      Zimbabwe Tanning Company, Private Limited (Zimtan)

The payments were made to Messrs Cooper and Lybrand for a total negotiated price of $30million. As spelt out in greater detail than normally necessary to exhibit that the offload of what was left of the former G&D and affiliated companies was clear and above board.

We tried to reconstitute and rehabilitate these concerns as Midiron before divesting. Any and all subsequent decisions in terms of the final disposal of assets were made within the strict knowledge of what made business operating sense of the purchaser (Native Investments). Mr. Coltart cannot begin to fulminate, and position himself heroic for expedient political purposes when he was the co-liquidator.

If he (David Coltart) and his cohorts were the arch-defenders of Bulawayo business interests beyond normal business considerations, they surely had the first rights to purchase the properties in their own right. They made good money by presiding over the liquidation of the above outlined properties, and now wish to question our morality when we made an investment decision to dispose of the same (properties).

The pieces of what was the former glories of these companies I sold off to the investment concern of Mr. Gula Ndebele (former Attorney General), and you have no one accusing him of running down anything. Ichi ndicho chinonzi chimodho chenyaya chashaiswa yeast nesugar yemafacts.

That very idea informing David Coltart’s peddled article of Dr Philip Chiyangwa through Native Investments destroying Bulawayo industries is a contrived, bald, naked, fat, one-eyed-journalistic short-man, created and set to run on the high-noon in the restive Bulawayo thoroughfare of misdirected public angst, anxiety, speculation, fantasy and fascination in particular- and the world at large in general.

May the record reflect that the shells of G&D Shoes and Zimbabwe Tanneries were not the whole industry of Bulawayo, but some of the many operations in this now distressed national industrial hub. It need be understood that concerned business entities came into my control when they were already in big distress.

Those who choose to swagger, drunken with factual stupor into the unprotected dark, evil territory of criminal defamation and slander are bound to be rudely and speedily hoisted up their petard. The normally respectable attorney David Coltart and all those publications who unwittingly gave mileage to such hot, early morning public urination on my name and reputation run the risk of due full legal recourse with recompense, and accompanying punitive damages.

This Coltart fella wants to rain the parade of my vaunted business success. On close and fair scrutiny all will realize that the sad de-industrialization of Bulawayo is a niggling national crisis that can’t be squeezed into the narrative of one failed company.

The story as told by the merchants of deceit through David Coltart’s active contrivance is a sordid crime scene of blatant murdered facts, half-truths, and grotesque lies that stink to the high heavens.

The story in its true sense is a broad, wanton and unwarranted assault on the black empowerment agenda and my stellar credential as a principal shining example of a black man making it inspite of all the odds ranged against him.

In Zimbabwe, no person has been more publicly pilloried, harassed and indeed fought against through what amounts to a sophisticated modern day lynching, and still came out to tell their story and made it by any indication-a fabled success.

Haters talk of Dr. Philip Chiyangwa because he is still standing tall and more successful than ever, in an operating environment scarred full of the business carcasses of has-beens. Don’t just hate-learn from and celebrate!.

The story as told and ran is a crime- and crime should not get glorified in the minds of the greater public nor go unpunished in the eyes of the law. In these anxious and dark nights of economic load-shedding whoever chooses to play circus by setting their political and journalistic pubic hair on fire should never complain when the resulting all consuming-conflagration reduces them to a nasty legal cinder.

David Coltart needs to tell the world what he has built in Bulawayo, outside of the harvest of thorns from bad political associations and decisions. I dressed him down when I was in parliament in 2000 over his mis-representation of issues and will continue to do so.

My name and brand should not get abused and wilfully invoked as “Social Viagra” to engorge and lend some rise to the deflated public profiles/egos of increasingly irrelevant and non-strategic thinking political vendors in distress.